


Mrs. Julia Neville

by Davechicken



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the bomb falls on Atlanta... where is Julia?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mrs. Julia Neville

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeaRyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/gifts).



The news didn't come through immediately. Even in the Georgia Federation - which was _much_ more advanced than the Monroe Republic - there were still physical limitations on how fast information could get from one town to the other. Reliable information, anyway. I first noticed something was wrong when the weekly envoy with dispatches didn't arrive. The odd one didn't. They came late or they missed a week - either through idleness or natural disaster or dereliction of duty for some higher cause like the latest conquest in a town or village up the road - so to begin with I didn't pay it any attention. 

What _did_ catch my attention was the day three people came riding through full of fire and fury and tales of the sky falling, like Chicken Little but considerably more terrifying. We all knew the power had come on and gone off again, and none of us really knew why - but then no one knew why it had gone off the first time, so you had the option of worrying yourself sick about it or accepting it and moving on. But the talk of explosions and clouds and cities on fire? That got you thinking. Or it did me. By their accounts Atlanta had fallen. No one knew how - other than the giant cloud in the sky above it - or why. But it was clear to me from that moment that I was no longer safe here in Florida. Without the capital - without President Foster - the whole Federation was ripe for anyone's picking.

I did not want to be a low-hanging fruit on a tree to be harvested. I had been there fifteen years ago, and I was not about to let it happen to me twice.

I was left with several options: First we could sit and wait and continue as normal. We could wait for the orders to come from whoever assumed control of the Federation and hope for the best. This was dangerous because if I did not know who had bombed Atlanta, how could I be sure any other city was safe? Not to mention if we just waited and no one came, we would lose any element of surprise and we could literally wake up one morning with a knife to our - to _my_ throat - and a demand to be a good little girl and lie there patiently and think of - think of whatever warlord was now in control.

No. That would not do.

Option two was to leave the Federation and seek asylum in a neighbouring territory. This was much more appealing to me, not least because as a woman I bore no brand or identifying mark that would announce my loyalty. I was glad that Monroe's monomania had been directed solely to his troops, because it did leave the women and children free to defect without fear of being identified. I had been famous, once. I had been the lauded lady on the arm of my good Major. That, however, felt like a long time ago now. Those who would recognise me were few and far between, often dead at Monroe's own hand. And if even General Matheson could sneak off unknown into the world? Why, a lady such as myself would have no difficulty in doing so. 

However this plan did have several flaws. The first was that I did not know where to go to, nor how to get there. We had barely survived by the skin of our teeth the first time our family had been on the run, and back then I had Tom to 'protect' me. My dear Tom, who had provided for us so well in Capitalist America had all but starved his wife and child to death in a forest until two soldiers with heads filled with grand ideas had taken us in. I admit I had barely paid attention to the survival skills they'd tried to teach me back then. I had been exhausted and everything I did was by rote. For all I curse that man's name, I must always remember that without him I would be dead right now. 

It was over a decade since I'd had to hunt and kill my food, and the meagre supplies I had stocked would not last me forever. Nor would I be able to trade for long. If I wanted to break free of the Federation's land and aim for either Texas or the Plains Nation (under no circumstance would I go back to the insane hell-hole that was the Monroe Republic, thank you), then I would need more. 

I am not a fighter. Do not get me wrong - this is not a matter of sexism - it is simply a matter of knowing myself. I am not built for brawling with fists, and although I am a reasonable shot and can and will take aim in time of urgency, I am much happier steering away from dangerous situations altogether. Why confront when you can avoid? Why get blood on my hands when I can have finer things instead? 

I am not a fighter. I am not a hunter. I am neither baker, seamstress, teacher nor bar-wench. My skillset suited me perfectly before the lights went out, but in this brutal existence my best hope for employ would be either as a governess or as a mistress. Now I don't know about you, but I have not seen much call for Mary Poppins to come educate squalling brats in manners, and I have no skill with a guitar to frolic on the mountaintops hiding from the SS. I have two gifts: my mind and my body. Were it to come to it, I would sell both. But I would not sell my pride.

So the sooner I used my brain, the more likely it was I could keep my pride and dignity intact.

I went to one of the Lieutenants of the small garrison that night.

"It is vitally important that I get to my husband - _Major_ Neville - as soon as possible."

"Ma'am... our orders are to stay put."

"Atlanta is in ruins, Lieutenant. How long will you wait for new orders? My husband outranks anyone here, and he was working directly for President Foster herself."

The title drop was deliberate. Even here, soldiers listened to the rank structure before they listened to their own common sense. You put a man in uniform, it seemed, and most of them would forget they ever had a brain.

It would be nice to find Tom. Of course it would. If anyone knew what was going on - short of Monroe himself - it would be my husband. He had an uncanny ability to find the nearest powerful person and make himself indispensable, which was something I had always admired about him. Well. After the Blackout. He'd truly come into his own once all the old rules about society had fallen apart. Most men in uniform - as I said - became stifled. Tom? Tom became free.

And then there was my son: Jason. I love him dearly. He is... he is young. He was in that period all young boys go through on their way to becoming young men, but out of which not all emerge better than they went in. I wanted to see him, too, but I was aware that it might not be possible. Might never be possible.

This was not what I would tell Lieutenant Hale. I would spin to him the lie that we had pre-arranged methods of reconnecting should the worst happen. I would spin to him the tales that I knew precisely what to do, and that I just needed his good strong right arm and the horses in the stables. I would lie and say that he would be greatly rewarded in my husband's command. 

I picked him because he was weak. I picked him because he was foolish. I picked him because I knew I could smile and say the right words and like a foolish little puppy dog... he would.

We set out that very night.

***

We had been on the road perhaps a month when we first heard the stirrings. We travelled as man and wife to keep the suspicion to a minimum, but Lieutenant Hale was far too honourable and foolish to capitalise on this. 

I considered it, a few times. He was young and pretty. He would serve me well in bed. However when I had spent these nice little fantasies of tongues or hands, I would remember what would come next. He was my pet, no more. If I were to let him into my bed at night then the whole dynamic would change, and it would not change for the better. He was the type to fall in love, not the type to scratch an itch and roll over.

The lovers are very easy to win over, but they turn nasty when you no longer have need of them. Better still it is to keep the promise of more forever just beyond their lips, and without knowing it they will fall for you and follow you until the bitter end. It's not you they love, you see. It's love itself. And it is a mercy and a kindness to allow them to worship you from afar. And then I could just use the heat of his gaze when I felt like it, could use the sound of his voice in my ear when I needed something different to occupy me at night.

I would think of Tom, too. We had - have - been married for so long that he knew my body like I knew it myself. There was nothing new under the sun with him, but that was not a complaint. He could be spontaneous and he could be passionate, and he also didn't waste time doing things that had no effect on me. I would imagine his hands and his cheeks and his lips and more. I would remember him inside me and I would scratch my own itches. I have needs, too. 

No matter. 

We were almost out of Federation territory and close to the Texas border when we first started to see the flags. Strange, really. I had never felt anything about the Stars and Stripes before it all fell apart, but my time with Monroe's men had instilled in me a deep sense of dread when I saw it. To begin with we assumed it was the Rebels again, but when we saw the well-oiled machinery of war and occupation lying on the town, I re-evaluated.

"What's this?" I asked, more to myself than anything else.

"Beats me," Hale said. And I realised with his youth that perhaps he remembered little of the days when Superbowls and World Series were broadcast across the nation. One nation. One nation under God. "You... want me to go ask?"

I put my hand on his arm. "Let me. I will look less... suspicious."

And so I asked. And so I learned. Tales of a conquering army freeing the townsfolk from their troubled unrest. Tales of a long-lost government come back to right wrongs. Tales of bombs - Philly and Atlanta - and tales of a President. The United States, they said, as though there hadn't been fifteen years of starvation and worse. We are back. We are here to save you. We are here to put right what once went wrong.

_Patriots._

My toes curled in my shoes but I smiled and said thank you, and went back to hook my arm through Hale's. "Come on, we need to find somewhere to think about this. Let's keep going."

So we did. We rode to the next town - the next - but everywhere we went it was the same. Red white and blue flags that flew as if there'd never been a day they did not. The towns seemed happy enough under their jurisdiction, and I had to admit I couldn't see any evidence of misrule. Still. It paid to be circumspect. We took up residence in one of the smaller hamlets and I set myself up as a tailor whilst Hale offered his services in the fields with the crops. I am not very good with a needle, but I'd learned how to darn socks and mend holes over the years. Other women were better, but I was cheaper, so I had enough of an income not to look too suspiciously idle.

This was when I worked out what I was supposed to do. It came to me one night - in bed - and I lay looking at the rafters in the pale, muted moonlight. It was a risk; but then, what wasn't?

"You need me," I said to the head of the Patriot's garrison, over the lemonade I had made for him in the small but perfectly kempt living room that was my pride and joy.

"I do?"

I nodded.

"You are doing a good job, here. People like you. People have hope again, when they haven't in so long."

"Well, that's the American Way, sweetheart. Hope. Future. It's what we're all fighting for."

"But you could do better. You could do so much more."

He looked at me, and I held up under his scrutiny. It would not do to blink. It would not do to flinch.

"What do you mean?"

"You have your rhetoric of victory," I told him, "but you do not have a _villain_."

"Oh?"

I smiled. "I know politics. You need a Press Officer. You take me on board and I will make the people love you, not just like you."

"And how would you plan on doing that?"

"Simple," I told him. "Get them to hate Monroe."

And with that, I knew I had found my place at last. The light went on in his eyes and I knew they would worship every last idea I placed before them. I was not born to fight - this much is true - but I was born to rule. It's just that I do it better from this side of the throne.

"I think there's someone you need to see..."

"I would be grateful if you could arrange a meeting for me, then," I went on, offering him some freshly baked (not by me) cake. "And then we can negotiate my terms of employment."

"You're one hell of a woman, Mrs...?"

"I am," I agreed. But I wasn't about to tell him my name. Not yet, anyway.


End file.
